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Connecting the world through free communication

Author:
Mark VletterPublished on:5 June 2018

In 2003 I worked in Haiti for roughly six months. Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world. After an 11-hour flight, you go from a country that has everything to a country that has nothing. In Haiti, I saw what a lack of access to information and communication does to a country and its people.

Today, 48% of the world’s population still has no access to free communication. This needs to change. With 48percent.org we want to bring equality to the world by enabling that last 48% to have access to unrestricted communication.

The plan to make this happen

There were a number of basic essential conditions for us to be able to make this a reality: a strong income stream, being a communication authority, and a scalable self-reliant organization. Now that these conditions are met, we can get started on building the solution. We believe this solution consists of roughly three parts:

1. You need a data network. These can be balloons, low orbitsatellite networks or drones that bring that data network to remote areas.2. Then you need a base station that translates the signal from these data networks into a local network.3. Finally, you must have devices that use this local network.

That’s easy, right?

It sounds simple and achievable, but unfortunately, it is not. The big bottleneck is electricity. Approximately 15% of the world’s population has no access to electricity, and things like WiFi and 4G demand a lot of it. A new generation of networks and receivers that are much more energy efficient needs to be built. Only then can the 48 percent of the world that does not yet have access to free communication be brought online.

The need for a reliable network

But with electricity alone, you are not there yet. A reliable network also has to be set up. This network is preferably an open source and crowd owned network. Any node added to the network can then be both a receiver and a transmitter. This makes the network independent of commercial parties and even of government authorities. Developing this network circularly also keeps the impact this project has on the planet to a minimum.

The 48percent.org foundation

In recent years we have developed the building blocks to be able to build the above framework. Now is time to stack those blocks! We’re very excited for this to happen and we are setting up a foundation for this purpose: 48percent.org.

The mantra of this foundation is:

“Bring equality to the world by enabling everybody to have access to unrestricted communication”

The first step is to promote the development of the components needed for open communication. We don’t have to do all of this ourselves, but we love to boost the process.

Generating power: the Lightyear One

The decentralized generation of power is a very important component to make it all possible. Looking at the latest technology, we already made a promising first purchase: we bought the Lightyear One. This solar car decentrally generates its own electricity and stores it in small batteries while giving an unmatched range for the capacity of these batteries. The team that developed the car has access to the networks that can make the solar and battery technology scalable and works, just like us, purpose-driven.